Should I ignore my mum's comments to my DS when they make my blood run cold? (long, sorry)

[NoNoNoMYDoIt]

Background - I have 2 DCs (DS 5 and DD 2). I am separated from their father but the children have shared residence with both their father and me.

My parents live 150 miles away so when they come to visit, they always stay.

My relationship with my parents is strained at best. My mother is very controlling and disapproves of me in just about every way imaginable.

This is about the way she is with the kids, tho. She can't cope with their behaviour at all (and their behaviour is far from awful). She rises to every single situation and gets very stressed by them. My father is also very short with them and calls DD 'child', rather than her proper name.

When they come to stay, I find it very stressful, not least because I hear my mum talking to the children, mainly DS at the moment but I can see it starting with DD also, in the same tone that she used with me. When I was growing up, I was always a 'horrid child', 'stupid', 'retarded, 'the worst thing that happened' to her. She 'rued the day I was born', wished she had never had me etc etc. And of course this has left me with woeful self esteem and an inability to form a real bond with another adult.

I am desperate to protect my children from this and go over the top (probably) to make sure they never have anything negative said about them. I still discipline their behaviour, with time-out / warnings and withdrawal of privileges etc. But it is their behaviour which is horrid or naughty, not them, and I am very clear about that.

So when my mum comes and starts saying to my son 'you are a nasty horrid little boy', I want to scream at her. But I don't.

I can't tackle her about this as she has only just started talking to me again after I went to court in the summer over residence of the kids - it didn't go the way she thought was best and she withdrew all contact with me for 4 months after the court ruling. If I try to say anything to her, she will just stop talking to me again, which is fine but then the kids miss out on seeing them altogether. The kids still ask to see their GPs so I know the relationship is important to my kids.

So am I right to just ignore what she says? I end up so stressed when she is here, because every time the kids get over-excited and start to play up, I worry she is going to start saying hateful things to them. As a result, I can't leave them on their own with her and my dad. I have tried to go for a run (for 40 minutes) while they are staying, but when I get home, usually one, and sometimes both, of the children is upstairs in its bedroom screaming because it is in trouble for something and has been sent to bed. My mother has a tendency to scream like a banshee and I cannot bear the thought that she might do this to my kids.

err, 'not only am I not intrisically evil'. otherwise that doesn't make any sense

Well then it sounds like you're doing a fantastic job! Like you say, having happy, outgoing, confident kids is the main thing and the thing that most parents (clearly not our parents though) aim for. You should be really proud of yourself that you have achieved this and have broken the abusive cycle.

I used to be the same as you, thinking inside that I wasn't nice and when I made new friends thinking "You won't like me when you get to know the REAL me", and just feeling that everyone probably disliked me anyway. I also spent a lot of my life being false because I don't think I knew who the real me was to be honest. On one hand I'd had over 30 years of being told/having it insinuated that I was this awful, selfish, evil nasty excuse for a human then on the other hand people did actually like me, and my children and husband love me. When I was a child, my mum used to tell family members how awful I was and I was always the black sheep of the family. It's only now that I truly dont give a fuck anymore that she respects me more and is much more wary of saying anything nasty or behaving in a negative way towards me of my children.

My mum and my first husband used to close ranks against me too, which was awful. He would say something horrible and I would reply and my mum would say "No need to go round snapping peoples' heads off". She is very passive aggressive and I spent all of my childhood in fear of what mood she would be in, whether there would be hugs and nice-ness or whether she would be in tears and slamming doors and telling me I was awful. I do feel a lot of power now that I've moved on from it all, and I accept that she is the one with the faults and the personality problem, rather than me. I almost feel sorry for her, what a waste of 60 odd years spent behaving in that manner. We were on holiday with her and my dad in the summer and some other family members and one evening we sat there at dinner and my mum just started crying in a very PA way, and whilst 2 years ago or so I would have thought it was aimed at me and wondered what I'd done, I just let her get on with it and carried on enjoying the meal with my DH, children and the other family members.

Whoops, I didn't mean to turn this round to being about me, but I really identify with so much of what you've said and it's quite therapeutic to vent about it all really.

I know this is stating the absolute obvious, but your parents sound completely horrendous.

A few years ago, I had to rant at deal with my mother talking very badly and scarily to ds. I found it hugely upsetting for months afterwards, maybe a year. Talking it over with friends and with dh, I realised that I just couldn't have her in my life as 'family' - I couldn't expose ds to the thing that had frightened me most about my mother when I was a child.

I'm very unsentimental about the grandparent relationship. It does nobody any good if the people they're conditioned to trust - their family - are abusive, and if you can protect them against that, then do.

I haven't cut my mother out, but I have redrawn the boundaries. I no longer involve her in my day-to-day life (I hardly ever tell her what's going on, even if she asks), I selectively answer the phone, almost never ring her, email contact has dwindled to almost nothing, and we see her maybe two or three times a year. She isn't allowed sole care of ds any longer. There will be no summer holidays with her. We've never enumerated any of this, we just decided, and so there have been no scenes.

Basically, if she was like that with you, and she's already being like that with your children, she's not going to suddenly stop. If you let them have this idealised grandparent-grandchild relationship, she will be abusive in the way that she was with you. Passively cutting back contact and breaking the bond is a relatively easy way to go. Be busy, be unavailable, be present when they are. There are some lovely people in the world, I'm sorry you're not related to them (I'm sorry I'm not as well!), but enjoy them and appreciate them and never mind your parents.

NoNoNo - as many people have said already, you would be doing your children a massive favour (and yourself incidentally) if you stopped these people from coming to your home.

If you want the DC to still see their grandparents (and I can see why you think they should but really?) then perhaps it would be better if you visited them. That way you take control of the situation - there is no reorganising of your home, there is no invasion of your home, and if it gets too much you can leave.

At the ages your DC are currently, the words your mother is using will be extremely damaging to them long-term, the same as they have been to you. This is the time in their lives that they will be laying down core beliefs about themselves, and all their other beliefs will stem from those core beliefs. Telling a child of that age that he is a "nasty horrid little boy" will stick in his head - you are doing the right thing by blaming the behaviour, not the child - he will believe what your mother says because she is an adult in a position of authority to him. You would be well advised to consider keeping your DC well out of harm's way until they are quite a lot older (7+) so that any of her poison is more likely to wash over them than embed itself in their psyche.

Grandparents who would treat their grandchildren in the way that your parents are treating your children are NOT a useful addition to your children's lives, they do not enhance them, they only detract and damage.

I am so very sorry for you that your parents are such unpleasant people - but your children do not need to suffer in the same way that you did - YOU can save them from it. Please do xx

Have PMd you as well, NoNoNo. :)

thanks hexagonal and very sorry to hear of your story. so much of that is so similar to mine it's uncanny. i am glad you have resolved this situation for yourself.

thumbwitch - thank you for your message, and your PM. i understand what you are saying and i think this is something i need to consider seriously.

leprunedematante - i'm glad that you also have managed to find a way forwards. interesting what you say about not telling her about your daily life. my mum is obsessed with the detail of my daily life and wants to hear about it all in great detail. if i answered the phone, she would speak to me for an hour or more every night. but i don't always answer these days and never ring back (which is wrong in her book) but at least it has made that particular issue go away.

My ex husband is like this with our kids. Reading this has made me want to cry. Especially " They don't seem to LIKE them very much"; ....

Oh shit (sorry for hijack)

Glad to hear you're not evil

Nothing more to add just wanted to say good luck and agree with dumping them or at least sticking up for dcs.

lemonstartree - so sorry to hear that. don't feel like it's a hijack. if you want to talk about it, please do. sorry to hear this is so raw for you.

How are you feeling now NoNoNo?

ok - you girls did warn me.

i took the kids down to see their grandparents this week as it is half term. yesterday mum and i caught the bus into town to go swimming with the kids. i took my running kit with me and planned to run home (6 miles = less than an hour) while she got the bus back with the kids (= 20 mins). not much could go wrong.

the 2 year old was very tired. at the bus-stop i double-checked that mum would be ok with it. i phoned my dad and asked him to pick mum and the kids up from the bus stop as the little one was very tired and wouldn't walk back without much tantrumming (which i knew would result in banshee behaviour from my mum).

i got home about 55 mins after i left them at the bus stop. the little one was in bed. she had screamed, wet herself and vomited apparently. she had been 'a nightmare'. on the bus she was fine. it was only when they got off the bus that she started screaming and then wet herself. and when they got home (3 mins drive from the bus stop) she vomited.

i didn't think much of it really. i knew she was tired... until tonight.

i got a visit from the police. a member of the public had called the police about the way my mum and then my dad had treated my DD. they had smacked her and used abusive language when she cried and then wet herself.

the police noted the registration number of my car (which my dad had driven to pick mum and the kids up in - he is insured on my car as theirs is small and they struggle to get car seats in it). they traced it to my house and paid a visit on me.

they aren't going to take it any further. but ... i probably don't need any more evidence now. i have to do it, don't i?

I'm so sorry your DD and you have had to experience this. It's despicable behaviour towards a small child.
Personally I'd ask the police to press charges, or at the very least go round and give them merry hell for their actions, and sorry, but please cut them out of your Dc's lives even if you can't manage yours fully.

Jesus Christ! Why are you even questioning yoour decision? For a member of the public to call the police (knowing what the public are like about minding their own business) the way they treated your DD must have been absolutely appalling. Please do not let your children be treated in this way, it will scar them.
I am sorry for speaking so harshly to you as I feel for you greatly, but you absolutely must make sure that contact ceases.

what major said, with knobs on. GET these horrible, abusive people out of your children's lives.

I think your own childhood has left you with a distorted perspective where your parents are concerned. You weren't too worried about your dd screaming, wetting herself and vomiting - until the police turned up? You didn't worry that they were in the care of someone who has proven herself cruel and hateful again and again? It doesn't occur to you that vomiting and peeing is a sign of fear?

Keep your children safe. Keep them away from your parents. And fgs, get yourself some counselling or some parenting classes or something that will show you what is normal and what is abnormal.

I mean, wtf was going on in your head to leave them alone with your mother? When you were right there? What on earth possessed you to deliberately choose to run back alone when you could have been on that bus too?

Is this some kind of wind up? Because if it isn't you really do need some help in working out right from wrong.

Yes, you do have to cut them out.

Your poor baby girl.

I hope you let your parents know in no uncertain terms what they did was fucking cruel, awful behaviour.

The pack of bastards, how fucking dare they make your dd feel like that.

If you let your dc continue spending time with these people, you really will be letting them down.

Please protect your children from such toxic people. Contact with them will be more harmful than beneficial.

she is 2. she does sometimes wet herself still. not often but it happens. she had been swimming; she swims independently and mostly underwater. she takes on a lot of water when she swims. this COULD explain both the weeing and the vomiting after crying. tonight she was in the bath and crying because she was soooo tired. she wouldn't get out of the bath but she was crying so much in the bath i thought she was going to be sick.

both the crying and the vomiting could have been to do with her being tired. they probably were both to do with her being tired.

what WASN'T excusable was the shouting, the abuse and the smacking. that is NOT something i want my child to experience. whether that merited a visit from the police, i can't say... in any case, i have a difficult conversation ahead with my parents...

Stop making excuses for them and trying to minimise the effect on your dd. You CAN say it merited a visit from the police. It did. That's why the police came to see you.

I appreciate it is difficult for you to see with a normal perspective because you were brought up by an abusive mother but please, LISTEN to the police and listen to everyone here.

She was in the care of someone who you know full well is abusive and who frightens children. Crying, vomiting and peeing are signs of extreme fear. And you think it's just a co-incidence?

You need to cut them out of your life and you need to get some help so that your perspective shifts to normal. So that you are able to protect your children.

You can not possibly let your parents treat your children like that. The words your mother used are so horrible, they should never be spoken, awful. These are major damaging things, and then you have the smacking to your poor little one, for wetting herself (at 2, that is just normal), and they showed no sympathy for her being tired, and vomiting.... they shouted at her!!!! Do not never ever leave them alone with your parents OP, I do not leave my own daughter with my abusive mother (she made a hell of my otherwise lovely childhood), and if they do not show deep understanding of how damaging they are, I would just severe any contact, sadly.

They are still only babies!! Sadly some people just are shit parents. That natural instinct is rarely, if ever, there when it should be. You left them for less than an hour

I know first hand how hard it is to stand up to a domineering mother damaged by her past. Your mother was treated badly by her mum, so she treated you badly. Congratulations on breaking the cycle NoNoNo !
Take those kids of yours and carry on cherishing them and making them feel good about themselves.

This last incident has told you everything you need to know about how they really treat their GC, but you were scared to face. They are not going to change and it will get worse as they get older. Your children will get nothing from the relationship. Cut them out and possibly write and tell them exactly why, and what you have suffered in the past. How they put you down and made you feel worthless. You may find it cathartic.

When i read your OP i was struck by how you said, when you went to court, and it didn't work out the way your mother wished it to, she didn't speak to you for months. At a time when you would need support more than ever, i should imagine.

Do not let her control you any longer. Be free x

NOt even half way through your post, but why do you allow them to visit? NO ONE would talk to my kids like that!

And I speak from experience, my mother isn't in my life for the way she treated me as a child, NO WAY would she get the chance to do that to my girls